Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Met up with a few of the guys from backcountry.com at their local dawn patrol spot in Parley’s Canyon. The sweet views consisted of the orange alpenglow in the horizon and a steady stream of headlights funneling down I-80. The turns were fun and I made into work by 9:30. Not a bad way to start out the day. Can’t wait to get back and ski off the summit of Mt.Aire.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

The weather in SLC has been less than ideal. With 10 plus days of high pressure the inversion got supper bad. The pollution in the valley was worse than I can remember in my 4 years here. Friday it started raining, giving everyone hopes of the inversion lifting, but instead we ended up with acid rain. Then the sun came out which was followed by a thick, dense, and eerie fog. The rain level was around 8,000 ft which made for some interesting skiing (soggy).

In true Wasatch fashion the strom pulled through, the temps dropped and the snow turned to fluff, blessing us with storm totals of 24" or more. This made great conditions for Larissa's first ski tour up Meadow Chutes. Oh yeah, no more inversion! (for now)

Sunday, January 18, 2009

With the avalanche danger finally mellowing out, it has given me the oppurtunity to get into some lines I have been thinking about since moving to Utah.

Day 1 - Started out with an early morning skin up Argenta (3250 vert) in Big Cottonwood. We were able to summit Kessler peak and ski down all before Crow had to head to work at noon. The skin was awesome and provided a beautiful view of Mt. Raymond and Gobblers Nob in the alpenglow. Skiing was good with some creamy snow in the uppertrees.

Larry, me & Crow @ the summit of Kessler

The route

In the upper chute

Day 2 - The goal for the day was to ski Bananna Chute off Allen Peak on the backside of Snowbasin. This is a shot I have been wanting to do in its entirety, but have never taken the time because it requires a fairly long car shuttle. The line decends 4600 ft in less than 4 miles and ends up in a neighborhood in Ogden. Definently a fun adventure with a run out that involved a ton of bush-wacking and dodging large boulders in a creek bed. Crow's edge suffered a fatal blow when he attemped to gap the creek.

Scouting the Bushwack

Looking back from Ogden

Day 3 - Didn't have a plan when the day started only that we were meeting Alex at the Base of Big Cottonwood at 9:00 am, which guaranteed an adventure. We decided to take a walk up Butler Fork for the day. Once we crested the first ridge and saw Mt. Raymond looming in the foreground we knew that was our target. I had only been up Raymond in the summer and remember commenting that "these lines would be awesome to ski." The approach to Raymond was a good push with a little scrambling on the ridge to get the blood flowing. It was a fun line from top to bottom with good turns off of Raymond, into an amazing aspen forest, and then out Mill A Gulch with spring like snow.